Guild Wars 2

gryph.8734:

And when the next expansion comes out, you’ll have something else to complain about.

Ah, so you think we are complaining simply for the sake of complaining?

Even following the recommendations in the sticky, my FPS never goes beyond 7 with the recommended settings.

If I set the FPS to 60, and turn off reflections, the FPS occasionally reaches 20 in Lion’s Arch, but is usually around 7 or 8.

This pretty much makes the game unplayable.

My system is:

OS: Windows 8.1
Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00 Ghz
RAM: 32.0 GB
System type: 64-bit
Graphics card: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series

One other notable detail, is that occasionally there is a prolonged black screen that pops up out of nowhere, showing that the graphics card is clearly struggling with the game, when it should be a piece of cake.

KOPPER.1458:

You already know the difference. You don’t need me to explain why those are very different.

No, I don’t know the difference. I don’t see any difference at all. This was not meant as a rhetorical question. I would really like to know what the difference is.

Your example is something that would not have been acceptable to me (probably one of the reasons I don’t play WoW).

Keep in mind though that by accepting inflated prices, you give Anet reason to keep up this behavior. You as a consumer could also be encouraging the opposite.

As it is priced now, with how little we know about the expansion, I will not be buying it till the price drops sharply.

KOPPER.1458:

There are lots of MMOs that sell their expansions for the same price or near same price as the original game. You might not like this practice, many people don’t. But you do have an option. You can not buy it.

“Everyone else is doing it”, is not a valid excuse.

KOPPER.1458:

The size of the land mass does not mean that HoT won’t stack up content wise to the original game. For a good deal of things all we have is speculation. If there is not enough info then you should wait.

What are you talking about? The expansion is not going to be nearly as much content as a full game. It’s barely a full expansion. It’s a small expansion.

MiniEquine.6014:

Mad Queen, just a heads-up: The price of the expansion at USD $49.99 includes a character slot now. In no sense of the matter does the game de facto cost $60 anymore. It used to, but since they included the character slot, it now actually only costs the 50 dollars.

Just letting you know you can’t toss around $60 and be correct anymore.

Do people who register after launch also get this free extra character slot?

KOPPER.1458:

“To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.”

This explains it all. The expansion is 50. This does not include any value for the core game. That is free. You may perceive it differently, but they answer this above.

Then please explain to me the difference between the $50 HOT expansion + free core game

and

The $50 core game + free HOT expansion

VOLKON.1290:

So, without knowing the full content of the expansion you’ve predetermined an opinion that paying the cost of the core game for the expansion isn’t worth it to you. My opinion differs. How about that.

What are we arguing about again?

Not knowing the full content, does not mean we don’t know the overall size of the expansion. You are not getting a full game, but you ARE paying for one.

VOLKON.1290:

And… who cares? Giving new players the core as well in no way hurts me or affects my game play, with the possible exception of there being new players around. I’m not losing anything, I’m still gaining the expansion.

You are losing money. A lot of money.

-They pay $50 and get HOT + the core game.
-You pay $50 and get HOT.

Since you are paying the price of a full game for an expansion, it is hard to believe that the core game is free. It seems to be included in the price tag, and you are paying for something you aren’t getting.

The core game is not without value. So if you are not getting the core game (because you already have it) the expansion should be cheaper for you.

Ricky.4706:

u know what gets me…….arenanet wanted to go e-sport – dota 2, has a daily attendance of 800k+ http://store.steampowered.com/stats/ – Dota2 looks like what guildwars use to be ….those fights look quite similar to hall of heros / heros ascent and gvg fights
- so what does anet do ? focus more on adventuring drives pvp further away from gw1

They should never even have attempted to be an e-sport. Not with the current sub-par combat system.

If you’re going to make your game into an e-sport, you had better make sure that your game mechanics and class balance are really solid.

VOLKON.1290:

A company sells a product. Two people are happy with it and buy it. The third claims he’s being swindled. Is it a swindle? Only in the opinion of the person asserting he’s being swindled, and that opinion is irrelevant to everyone else.

Not an entirely invalid argument. But then again, almost all victims of swindling think they are not being swindled at first. That doesn’t mean they are not a victim of it.

And I feel that is the case here. Customers are paying the price of a full game, for something that is not a full game worth of content. Some of the consumers think this is perfectly reasonable. Others think this is a rip off. Is it a rip off?

You might say that that is all in the eye of the beholder. But I disagree. Can’t see say objectively that they are getting less for their money now, than they did before?

VOLKON.1290:

I don’t think you put a lot of thought into this here:

“-Then why not include a free key for the core game along with our purchase?”

Really… what are you going to do with it? Make an alt account that would still need to purchase the expansion? Give it to someone else… that would still need to buy the expansion when they could have bought the whole thing at once?

I’m not saying that I would want a free extra key for the core game. I’m saying that if the core game is supposedly included for free, then I’d like to see something for it. Otherwise I can’t shake the feeling that I’m paying for something I’m not getting.

One thing that I would like to see, is boss fights that don’t revolve around a timer.

Galen Grey.4709:

No expansion is the size of a full game, its unreasonable to expect it to be considering that an expansion is worked on for a fraction of the time a company works on the full game. That being said, we dont even know how big HoT is, isnt this argument a bit premature?

We know that it won’t be the size of a full game, because it is an expansion. And as you said, no expansion is the size of a full game.

But it is priced as a full game. This makes the price unreasonable, regardless of what future content they reveal in HOT. It’s not going to be more than a full game, and yet it is priced as one. On that basis alone, we can say it is too expensive.

Vayne.8563:

But to say there’s not enough content, when we don’t know about the content is pointless. As I said earlier, you can’t compare Nightfall or EotN or anything to HoT because we have all the detail of those, but we don’t have all the detail about HoT. The best you can do is just guess.

It’s too early to tell.

It’s the price of a full game, for something that is not a full stand alone game. I’d say there is a solid basis for criticism there.

I agree Blaeys. It would be great to see a new type of Raid that is consistent with GW2’s overall design, and that includes stuff like dynamic events. I would also love to see commanders take a central role during raids, and organize various battles in the zone.

I’d love to see a balance between challenging boss encounters and challenging mob encounters. A type of encounter-design that turn common trash into meaningful and challenging encounters.

Perhaps a Raid in GW2 should work some what similar to The Deep or The Twisted Marionette, where you break up the huge groups into smaller ones, for multiple battles.

Galen Grey.4709:

I may be loved by Anet’s marketing department but make no mistake I am sure you’re loved by Anet’s competitors marketing departments too.

Apart from DDO and GW2, I don’t play other MMO’s. And DDO has not earned a single penny from that so far.

I have long been a very big supporter of Arena Net. Me and my snowman companion have been organizing large scale community events in Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 (now with the help of an amazing crew) since GW1 launched. And I have helped with GW1 testing in the past as well. So I want to make it clear where my criticism is coming from. I’m a big Guild Wars fan, but this just doesn’t sit right with me. And you seem to be buying too eagerly into marketing talks.

Galen Grey.4709:

And again thats assuming all slots are filled which might not even be an issue for some. How many people key farm? How many people said the NPE was an issue for them? How many people dont like having alts? How many people bought more slots then they actually needed when they were on sale? (I am guilty of this for example) How many people stated the reason for not buying HoT was they were not interested in the Revenant?

So you are saying that just because there are some customers that are not interested in an extra character slot, that it is there for not a valid argument that an extra $10 should be included when looking at the price of the expansion with an extra profession?

Because if that is what you are saying, I still disagree. There are plenty of customers that WILL need it, and for them this raises the price by $10 bucks.

Balsa.3951:

Name is perfect just see what Guardians do with Teq at the moment :P

Then Dragon Exploiter might be a better name. :P

My idea for a raid in GW2:

-An open explorable, instanced, accessible by many players at the same time.
-Multiple quest goals, which all need to be completed in order to unlock the end.
-Quests and encounters that aren’t trivialized by stacking, zerking or simply by overwhelming numbers.
-Monsters that require careful planning, teamwork, and clever builds, and are quite deadly otherwise.
-Dynamic event chains inside the raid
-Harvesting nodes inside the raid
-Vistas inside the raid
-Skill challenges inside the raid, that unlock a specific special skill that is needed for progression inside the raid.
-Unique drops (crafting materials miniatures, and weapon skins) that can drop from any enemy
-Randomized bonus chests
-Multiple floors, jumping sections and swimming sections
-After all quests are completed, any player can enter a multi-stage boss battle if they meet the requirements for doing so. This means completing certain quests first on a personal level, and completing the end-battle requirements for the instance itself.

In all honestly, I love the new Lion’s Arch. It is very pretty. Finally it feels more like an actual city, rather than a large harbor with some vendors. I also like the exterminator quest.

But some points of constructive criticism:

-Some npc’s still reference things from the old LA, this needs to be fixed.
-Many npc’s have no dialogue.
-The Trolls Revenge JP should have some checkpoints or better direction in my opinion.
-One or two of the karka are hidden in really annoying places that are nearly impossible to see and/or target.

And a final request: I would love to see the fountain of the old GW1 Lion’s Arch finally raised to the surface.

Gaile Gray.6029:

The best part.

Well, in my opinion.
And that of a certain amphibian friend o’ mine.

We are all waiting for you to bring him back.

I’ll lend my support for this. Although the recent necro changes improved our class a lot, the axe still needs to be looked at.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I do hope that one day Anet will change their mind about the Abaddon fractal. I was interested in both fractals, but in the end disappointed by Thaumanova – I was hoping that it would actually show some of that Inquest research, and not just tell us something we already suspected (that dragon energy got mixed in with the chaos energy).

@OP: The Abaddon fractal was not a GW1 event, but refers to the events of Year 0 – the events that led to the splitting of the Bloodstone and led into the events of GW1. The beginning of it all.

I agree regarding the Abaddon fractal. I really hope we get to see it some time. The Thaumanova reactor was less interesting lore-wise, although I enjoyed it gameplay-wise.

I hate boss battles on a timer. I’d much rather have a boss wipe all the players, than lose because an alarm clock reached zero before the boss’ health ran out.

Sketch.3658:

Medium Small – Asura Revenant (Holding name in advance) inspired by the TV Show Medium, the surname Small and the obvious play on words. Hilariously, at last to me, it still fits Asura naming cultural rules perfectly.

If that character ever escapes from a jail, then he is a small medium at large.

Galen Grey.4709:

So then by your same logic Gw2 Core didnt cost $60 but $1210 since you need 8 professions x 5 races x 3 personal story branches = 120 character slots to experiance all the core game has to offer and you only get 5. That leaves you 115 short so you had to buy $1150 worth of slots on top of the $60. actually strictly speaking you need to buy 2 copies if you want 120 slots so technically its $60 more but lets forget about that cost for now. wow Heart of Thorns is a real bargain at just $60.

I would say that by not including enough character slots to play all of the professions, that we were indeed not getting a very good deal with the core game either.

Galen Grey.4709:

Are you really suggesting thats a fair assessement?

Anet decides the price tag of a character slot. I don’t agree with your creative number juggling, but I do agree that the original game should have given us more character slots for the money we original paid. That said though, we DID get a full game worth of content, which is not what we are getting this time around (yet for the same price, and without any character slot)

Galen Grey.4709:

The extra character slot is an optional purchase much like buying 115 more character slots for the core game is an optional purchase.

I’m sure they’d love you at their marketing department. Fortunately many of us don’t see it that way, and have a more grounded view of game-content versus price.

Galen Grey.4709:

Plenty of ways how you can avoid that $10, saying its mandatory is simply disingenuous.

You are still paying for the character slot, and you will most likely need it. To claim that it is entirely optional is exactly what the marketing department wants you to think.

But the expansion does give you one new profession, and if you’ve used up your character slots (which were already not enough for all the classes) then you will need a new one. How you go about getting it makes very little difference. You can pay for it with dollars, euros, gems or gold. But either way it raises the actual price of the product.

maddoctor.2738:

You get gold and even gems simply by playing the game doing what you want and playing what you want. You don’t have to “work” for them unless you want to. So the character slot comes as a bonus from doing what you are already doing anyway.

I don’t agree that it works that way. You are spending gold after all, so you are spending money.

maddoctor.2738:

This is the main “problem” with the gem store really. They have to balance the cost in gems for anything to be both reasonable if you use cash (which is hardly the case on many things) and a reasonable price to get them with gold.

You cannot convert gold into dollars directly. You cannot go and use your gold to buy anything outside the gem store, so the value of that gold isn’t the same.

I agree, it is nearly impossible to put an exact value on gold. But I wouldn’t say the value of gold is zero. You are making an investment, so the character slot isn’t free.

I should also point out that CMAJ doesn’t use macros, so all the wonderful music you heard was played by them for real. That is amazing, and we’re truly blessed to have them be a part of our events.

maddoctor.2738:

You can also buy that character slot with gold someone that is an old player and has been playing for 3 years should have enough to buy a single character slot.

Or even Achievement Points, you get 400 gems every 5k APs it’s not uncommon for an old player to have 10k AP by this point, so enough to get that slot.

That’s still an investment. I think it is safe to say that gems have a dollar value attached to them. And since gems can be bought with gold, gold has a dollar value attached to it as well by default. This means that the game allows you to work, in order to earn a digital currency that has a certain dollar value in-game (not outside of it).

So you are paying for it. You are just paying for it with a digital currency instead of real dollars. That doesn’t mean you are getting the character slot for free.

VOLKON.1290:

But you know what… in addition to that extra character slot we also have something they’ll never have… up to three years of GW2 out of the gate.

Most of which was temporary content, and the rest of which can be unlocked through the gem store by new players as well.

VOLKON.1290:

Put a price, if you can, on that alone.

Quintuplebeta.3914:

I believe that the game is worth the price. To all those who say that the expansion is not big enough, you need to remember that we are paying for not only everything that we have seen, but also a ton of things we have yet to see. This includes the next few seasons of living world.

Also, To all those people who are complaining that new players are getting a better deal for pre-purchasing it, the people who have been playing the game since launch have had a unique opportunity in the form of the entire first season of living world which nobody else can go back to play, and we also got season two for free to go back and play if we were online at the time.

TLDR: Is the expansion worth $50?
Yes.

Anet already put a price on it for us. You can unlock previous chapters of the Living Story through the gem store.

VOLKON.1290:

Have you had fun? Got your money’s worth? If it’s been worth it to you so far then who gives a flying monkey’s left buttcheek what new people get? We’re getting the expansion plus an extra character slot (or two, depending…).

We are NOT getting the extra character slot. It isn’t included with HOT as far as we know. You ONLY get it if you register the game before launch, but it isn’t actually included with the expansion. Don’t let yourself be deceived by marketing so easily.

Besides, this whole discussion was never about what new players get. It’s about a small expansion being priced as a full game, with the full game supposedly included for free. Anet has not accounted yet for the super inflated price tag. And thus the consumers (thats us), not veterans, not elitists, not entitled players, but us the consumers… we look at the price tag and think: If the base game is included for free for new players, then why are we paying the price of a full game, for a small expansion?

VOLKON.1290:

No expansions are truly as big as the core game. Hell, games like WoW charged a crapload more for their expansions if you think about it…

So just because some companies exploit their customers MORE, we should not criticize companies that exploit their customers to a smaller degree?

Seriously, do you work for their marketing department or something?

Quintuplebeta.3914:

you need to remember that we are paying for not only everything that we have seen, but also a ton of things we have yet to see. This includes the next few seasons of living world.

What?!

We’re not supposed to be paying for the living story and updates at all! We’re paying for the expansion, and that’s it. The living story and updates are supposed to be free.

Algreg.3629:

a) yes.
a) no, not unless you are, unless someone is. Without at least an intended victim, there is no case of swindle. Please tell me a case of swindle without the intent of victimizing someone by it. Analogykittenfailing badly here.

Allow me to correct you. Take this example:

A company tries to swindle 3 people. Only one person falls for it, the other two recognize it as such. Is it a swindle? Yes it is. Is it a swindle to all three of the persons involved? Yes it is. Now replace the company with Anet, and the audience with all of us. A swindle is still a swindle, regardless if someone falls for it or not.

Windsagio.1340:

Honestly though, if you can’t afford a 50 dollar expac, you have much bigger problems on your plate than that.

I am astonished that some of the people in this thread think they are getting good value for their money, when they pay the exact same price as the core game, and yet get a small expansion for it that does not even include a free extra character slot (unless you register before launch).

You are basically paying twice as much money as you did for the original game, in terms of actual content. That is a rip off. And yet some people in here have the nerve to make accusations regarding people’s financial situation because they think $50 is too much. You should be ashamed of yourselves!

comprisedpuma.1324:

And the actual product is $50, not $60.

If you believe that, then you have been successfully fooled by marketing. Anet knows that many players will need a new character slot to play the revenant. So they know people will have to fork over an extra $10 bucks to play it.

That inflates the price to $60, whether you like it or not. This is why previous chapters of Guild Wars 1 always included a number of extra character slots equal to the amount of new professions added.

Asudementio.8526:

Your argument is that quantity of content is the only metric on which price should be established. Fine that is a fair position to have then. For others this is not the case, it is always something nice but for some of us we weigh the worth of games more abstractly.

Then by what metric do you weigh the value of this expansion?

Ayrilana.1396:

Gw2 was $60 and not $50. You don’t know how big/small HoT will be..

HOT is $60 bucks as well. So you are paying exactly the same.

And no we don’t know how big HOT will be. But we do know:

-It will be smaller than the core game, and thus shouldn’t cost the same.
-It’s a small expansion, not a full standalone expansion like in GW1.

Ayrilana.1396:

EotN and HoT are priced similar to their base games.

EotN was NOT priced similar to it’s core game. It was a lot cheaper than Prophecies.

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

For pity’s sake people! You paid $60 for ~30 explorable areas (counting cities) in the base game. And now ANET is asking you to pay $50 for a THIRD of that MAYBE. And you’re perfectly fine with it. I just don’t understand.

Well, we are paying $60 if you count the cost of an extra character slot, which you will most likely need to play the revenant.

But yes, you have a good point. I don’t understand it either. Why are players paying the price of a full game for much less content?

Healix.5819:

The zerg has always been terrible at killing it. Before the zergs came along, you used to be able to solo it in half the time they usually take. Blame all the leechers – they make everything that scales worse.

Or better yet, blame the scaling itself.

Ayrilana.1396:

So you paid $50 for Nightfall which is smaller than Prophecies?

Yes, but that was the special edition, which also included dozens of goodies. The actual base expansion was cheaper.

Ayrilana.1396:

You paid the price of the original game.

For a special edition of a stand alone game.

Ayrilana.1396:

EotN was like $35 which contained even less content.

Which WAS an expansion, and was priced accordingly.

Ayrilana.1396:

EotN was easily less than half the content of Prophecies.

And was thus priced at much less than Prophecies. But you are paying the same price for HOT as for GW2. See the problem? You pay the price of a full game, and get a small expansion. They never did this with GW1. The price was based on the size of the expansion/region.

lordkrall.7241:

Why wasn’t original Guild Wars 2 broadly being advertized as containing a battle with the Elder Dragon? Because that would be a good selling point. But clearly we DID fight the Elder Dragon in the original release of GW2.

Actually, GW2 advertised ALL the elder dragons, and it was a bit of a disappointment when it only contained one elder dragon. Also, it was a full game. This is a small expansion.

Ayrilana.1396:

$60. How much was GW1 on release? $50.

So in other words, development costs have not changed that much at all.
And also, you are clearly paying the same price for a small expansion, as you did for the full game.

This looks like they are tricking us into paying for the same game twice.

Ayrilana.1396:

Development costs are not the same. Do you really believe that development costs for Diablo 2 were the same as Diablo 3? How about Super Mario Bros to Super Mario World? Or Daggerfall to Morrowind? If you do then I’m shocked. If you don’t then how could you think that they would be the same between GW1 and GW2 core game/expansion? Higher costs tend to translate to higher prices.

Oh really? How much was GW2 on release?

ProtoGunner.4953:

The original price of the Nightfall CE was much more expensive than 50.

I don’t think so.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Don’t compare a 9 year old game’s price with an upcoming expansion.

Why not? Same company, same price. It is entirely justified to compare the value for the same price.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Also you get a ton of updates in the future.

You are not paying for the updates, you are paying for the expansion. Besides, Nightfall also got plenty of updates, including a whole endgame area. So that argument is void.

MiniEquine.6014:

That would be like assuming that Harry Potter was definitely not going to fight Voldemort at the end of the 7th book because JK Rowling didn’t explicitly say that he would after she wrote the 6th book.

That is a bad comparison, because you are using the end of a long series of books, and are comparing it with the first small expansion of a game. Yes, this is a small scale expansion.

I don’t really feel that I am getting an extra character slot, when Anet says: “Only if you pre-purchase”.

How about, just give us all a free extra character slot if we buy the expansion at all? I mean, you are not giving us a good deal for our money as it is, so throw us a bone at least. Don’t make us pre-purchase in order to get something that should be included with a price tag of $50 to begin with.

Broom.2561:

And even in this game, people capable of healing just DO NOT HEAL OTHERS even when it’s essential (e.g. temple of balthazar, keeping the NPCs alive).

To be fair, that is often more of a case of enemy mobs spawning right on top of the NPC’s, and instantly obliterating them with multiple simultaneous nukes, before people can even react.

I like that players can use portals to ease the puzzle, but I don’t think they should be a requirement…. which is what it feels like right now.

Trial and error usually isn’t good design. This puzzle kind of demands that players bump their head into a wall over and over again, till they figure out where to go. And they have to restart the puzzle all over again every time they fail a jump, or go the wrong way. Without a clear end goal, “going the wrong way” is pretty much guaranteed.

Please make this JP a bit more user friendly.

Malafide means “bad in spirit”, “untrustworthy”, or “of an untrustworthy nature”.

So, they have low packaging and distribution costs… but HOT does not come as a physical copy, it’s purely digital. And yet, it still costs the same as the fully packaged standalone Nightfall CE with a soundtrack, and a “making of…” DVD, and all the other stuff that came with the box?

Where is this $50 bucks price tag derived from? It’s not packaging costs, and it’s certainly not content. There’s no bonus content. And the core game is supposedly included for free. So…. please explain Anet.

It was a joy to host this with good old Frozenwind, and I would also like to give my personal thanks to the rest of the crew for making this awesome event. Also my congratulations to Melody. You were the perfect person that could possibly have won Heart of Thorns, and it is well deserved.

And of course, thanks for attending everyone. We’ll see you again soon!

That is where I disagree. They did the most minimal damage control they could possibly do.

nathanjameson.3542:

good luck with that, then. you certainly seem to have made a lot of progress.

Anet has certainly taken notice of all the customer dissatisfaction, that’s for sure.

Algreg.3629:

How are you “ripped off” anyway? You know the condition of the deal. You can enter a consensual agreement or refuse to, unless you omitted there is someone blackmailing you to buy HoT just now.

So it is not a rip off unless you pay for it.
In other news, something cannot be a swindle, unless you are the victim of the swindle.

Diovid.9506:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

And yet this also works the other way around.

Anet is being silent about Mordremoth, and thus many consumers automatically assume without evidence that surely he must be included in the expansion.

But there is no reason to think this is the case. And like I said, there was an interview where one of the devs mentioned that Mordy would not be included. That’s more evidence supporting “no” rather than “yes”, regarding his inclusion. Now I don’t know if this is final (they could very well change their minds), and I can’t remember where I saw this interview…. but still. It would sure make the decision to buy the expansion easier if we DID know.

I suspect the silence is deliberate.